Oldies acts generally fall into three categories: Those who become loungy Vegas versions of themselves, those who use comedy to help carry their music and those who persevere, playing their music as if it’s still vital – and maybe even improving it.

Each of the three were on display Saturday at the 24th annual Camelot for Children Christmas Spectacular concert at Allentown’s Symphony Hall. That’s not really a criticism of the acts; there’s clearly room for such entertainment and the near-sellout crowd of more than 1,100 seemed to enjoy all three.

The Happenings' Bob Miranda, left and Bob KulikPhotos by Brian Hineline/Special to The Morning Call

The Happenings, who opened the show, chose the longue route. Less than half the group’s 11-song, 50-minute set was music it had made popular – in fact, it played songs as recent as Josh Groban’s 2007 hit “You Raise Me Up.”

Front man Bob Miranda, the group’s only original member, was engaging, hopping and twirling as he sang on the opening “People Got to be Free” from the Young Rascals. And his voice was good enough, too: He held a long, strong note at the end of that song and, on the Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” sang Bill Medley’s deep parts as the crowd cheered him along. He also got down on his knee for the lyric “I get down on my knees for you.”

Member Bob Kulik’s falsetto voice also was good – impressively ripping the ending of that song and on a five-song medley of The Four Seasons’ hits, and doing a very good Neil Diamond on “Sweet Caroline.”

Both sounded good on The Happenings’ biggest hits, “I Got Rhythm” and “See You in September, and they went for the assured standing ovation by closing with Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” and dedicating it to veterans. But in fairness, it connected – the crowd not only stood, but cheered, whistled and clapped as Miranda held a long note.

The Grass Roots chose the comedy route, with front man Rob Grill spending as much time telling jokes as he did singing in a 10-song set that lasted just under an hour.

The Grass Roots' Robb Grill

In fairness, Grill, who recently has had health issues, clearly had physical limitations: walking on stage with a cane and a pronounced limp, and some singing limitations, as well. On several songs, including the opening “I’d Wait a Million Years,” bassist Mark Dawson sang lead.

Dawson was fine, but his leading the band on such hits as “Sooner or Later” made it sound like a cover band (which, in essence, it would be – Grill’s the only original member).

Ironically, when Grill did sing, his vocal shortcomings actually added to the songs’ emotions. “Let’s Live for Today” sounded wonderfully pleading and desperate. (It also had a very nice guitar solo by Dusty Hanvey.) “Where Were You When I Needed You” had the same feel. Even his effort on “Heaven Knows” seemed right for the song.

It helped that The Grass Roots’ catalog is amazingly good. “Things I Should Have Said” is a great song that strongly resonates 43 years later, and the parts Grill did sing in it made it better.

But despite having a treasure trove of hits, The Grass Roots also did covers: Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds’ “Don’t Pull Your Love” and “Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)” by Edison Lighthouse, jokingly passing them off as “Grass Roots songs.” One of Grill’s jokes was to say that, being a band from the ‘60s, “you can make up anything you want and people won’t remember if it’s true.”

But they closed their set with their two best-known songs, “Temptation Eyes” and “Midnight Confessions,” on which Grill’s voice also worked.

While delivering the music with humor is understandable for a band that had its heyday more than 30 years ago, there’s still something bittersweet about a band whose songs conveyed dramatic emotion treat them with less reverence.

But the Associations’ closing 70-minute, 14-song set seemed to get it right.

The Association

The band played the hits, and not only did them well, but played them as if they were still vital. They opened and closed with “Windy,” and the crowd even stood and cheered during “Cherish.”

Of course, the harmonies were great –delightfully ragged on “Never My Love” and good and high on “Everything That Touches You” and “Enter The Young,” on which their playing was loose and funky.

About that playing: The Associations weren’t afraid to play. They did a good update of The Left Banke’s “Walk Away Renee,” which they had covered back in the day, and the audience clapped along. They rocked New Christy Minstrels’ (in which front man Larry Ramos played before The Associations) song “Green Green.”

And “Along Comes Mary,” was a blast, with the words spewing out as the band rocked.

Despite playing covers – The Mamas and The Papas’ “California Dreamin’” and Bob Dylan’s “One Too Many Mornings” – but made them their own, with harmonies on the former and rocking and rolling on the latter.

The band also played a six-song Christmas medley, which was the only time during its set that it sounded like a lounge act.

Margaret Durante realizes that as a new blonde country singer in her early 20s, with her debut album set to come out on an imprint label created for her, she’s going to be compared with Taylor Swift. And that’s alright with Durante.

“I think Taylor Swift has mastered the art of writing a great song,” Durante says Friday in a telephone interview from her Nashville apartment to promote her appearance at Lehigh Valley radio station WCTO-FM CAT Country 96.1’s first Jingle Jam show at Stroudsburg’s Sherman Theater. The show benefits St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

“She knows the importance of relating to her audience and I totally respect her for that and I see the value in that as well. Songwriting is one of my favorite processes in Nashville and I think it’s an opportunity that I can take advantage of if I want to reach out to my audience and show them who I am and get to know them better.”

Just don’t make the mistake of comparing Durante to Taylor Swift.

Because, despite at 22 being just a year older than Swift, “My subject matter might be a little bit – mature isn’t the word, but it might just be for young adults,” says Durante, whose new single, “Mississippi’s Crying,” is making its way up the country radio charts and recently was featured on iTunes and Amazon’s “What We’re Listening To” lists.

“She, I think, has a little bit of a younger audience. And I think she’s definitely growing up and growing up with her audience, but I think I’m targeting more a young adult audience.”

Despite her age, Durante isn’t a newcomer to music. A Maryland native, Durante at 16, started several years of touring with the top New Jersey-based Bruce Springsteen cover band B Steet Band – she even played Allentown Fair with them a couple of years ago.

And she previously had a singles deal with Universal Republic Records, with whom she released a cover of Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody” that got radio play. But with that label based in New York, Durante says, “it just wasn’t the perfect relationship for someone living in Nashville and promoting a county record. It was still a great opportunity and I’m glad that they helped me with the one song.”

Universal’s super producer Tommy Matola also introduced Durante to her producer, James Stroud, who launched Emrose Records, an imprint on his Stroudavarious Records, for her – much like music industry veteran Scott Borchetta launched Big Machine Records for Swift.

Durante says she’s working to release her debut album early next year. She’s got six songs already recorded, and “I think we have all the material selected” for the rest of the disc. She wrote several of the songs, including “If Love Will Let Me” and “Paper Chains,” which are on her MySpace page.

Despite aiming for a more mature sound, Durante had a breakthrough recently when “Watch Me,” a song by the band Hot Rush on which she sings lead, was picked by Disney for use on the premiere episode of “Shake It Up,” a new weekly TV series airing 8 p.m. Sundays on The Disney Channel.

“In Nashville there are so many great musicians and people who are willing to collaborate, and I was writing with my friend Ben Charles for my album and I was kind of goofing off during one of our co-writes and I have this Britney Spears impersonation that I do,” Durante says, laughing.

She says Charles told her his band, Hot Rush, had songs he hoped to pitch to Disney, and “I feel like your Britney Spears thing would come in handy,” she says laughing. “Disney liked the songs as is and ended up placing a bunch of them in this new show. So it’s just kind of a cool side project.”

“It’s a pop interpretation. It’s not my country stuff,” she says. “It’s a different audience, and I like all kinds of music. And it’s kind of fun to go outside the project that I’ve been working on for the past three years and sing some other music.”

I realize that this is almost two days late, but I wanted to comment on the performances on Wednesday’s Grammy Award nominations — mostly because they were just so far superior to the performances at the American Music Awards less than two weeks ago.

Only six artists performed on the Grammy nominations, compared with the American Music Awards, but in total the Grammy show still offered the total better performances. Whether it was the gravitas of the Grammys, a better selection of performers or the weather, the songs sounded much, much better than the AMAs.

When Kid Rock was one of the best performers at the AMAs, and he was, you know it wasn’t a good night.

One thing I asked after the AMAs was why they didn’t have Katy Perry perform. She did on the Grammy nominations, an while she had some missteps – a bad yodel at one point – and a lot of help from background singers, “California Gurls” was fun and entertaining.

What was really enlightening was that, even with that level of performance, Perry was among the weakest on the Grammys show.

The best was Bruno Mars. His arrangement of “Just the Way You Are” – backed by piano, violin and him sitting quietly strumming an acoustic guitar, so sparse it was virtually a cappella, and he delivered. If it wasn’t a knockout, it was at least a stunner.

Mars also was good on his duet with B.o.B. on the latter’s “Nothing on You.” B.o.B. is so much better than the dumb, expletive-filled musical drivel by Kanye West we had to endure at MTV’s Video Music Awards. B.o.B. had speedy rapping fun on “Don’t Let Me Fall,” though I would have liked to hear him do “Airplanes” with Paramore’s Hayley Speedy, who was a presenter on Wednesday.

Train again did “Hey Soul Sister,” which by now is way overplayed. But it's a great song, and singer Patrick Monahan seems to know it’s important to perform the heck out of it each time. He pretty much did, though this might be the one song that was done better at the AMAs.

Miranda Lambert also was better at the Country Music Awards last month. Her performance of “Only Prettier” was far more traditional country than John Prine’s "That's The Way That The World Goes Round," which she did at the CMAs. On Wednesday, she went off key occasionally, but still was very solid and showed why she’s getting all the attention – and nominations – she is.

Justin Bieber sang in a noticeably lower register than in the past and still struggled a bit with his changing voice on “Favorite Girl,” which he played on acoustic guitar with a second guitarist. I still liked his performance and think he has a better future than his critics are predicting.

Rob Grill, lead singer of the hit-making 1960s band The Grass Roots – has more of a connection with the Lehigh Valley than just the fact that he and his band will be among the three headliners at Saturday’s Camelot for Children Christmas Spectacular concert at Allentown Symphony Hall.

Grill’s wife, Nancy, was born in Lehighton’s Gnaden Huetten Hospital, now a campus of Blue Mountain Health Systems.

Rob Grill

In a recent telephone interview with Grill while his wife was driving them between shows through their current home state of Florida, Nancy Grill, 52, says that while she never lived in the area, she was born there when her traveling parents were nearby.

The hospital was chosen because she had aunts who worked there, Grill says. While she grew up in Maryland, members her extended family – which included the Sheehans and Strubingers – lived in Jim Thope, Nancy Grill says. She says some extended family still live in the Carbon County seat.

“Do they still call it ‘Chunk?’” she asks, referring to old-timers’ practice of fondly referring to Jim Thorpe as Mauch Chunk, the borough’s name before switching in the mid-1950s.

Grill, 67, and Nancy met in the mid 1980s when he was performing at a club in Orlando, Fla. Nancy, then a radio announcer in that area, was working at the club that night, too.

The Grass Roots, who had 15 Top 30 hits from 1966 to 1972 — including Top 10 hits “Let’s Live For Today,” “Midnight Confessions,” “Sooner or Later” and “Two Divided by Love” — will be on the bill at Symphony Hall with The Associations and The Happenings.

Here's a video of Grill and The Grass Roots, back in the day singing "Midnight Conefessions":

There will be an autographed 8-by-10-inch photograph of Michael Jackson. Lithographic prints of The Beatles and Rolling Stones. A Martin Guitar bag.

And for you less music minded people, a 1 carat sapphire and diamond pendant and chain, and Jamaican vacation.

Those are some of the items to be auctioned off at the Lehigh Valley Music Awards’ 12th annual ceremony at 4 p.m. Sunday at Scottish Rite Cathedral in Allentown.

The auction will be during intermission of the ceremony, at which awards will be handed out in 57 competitive categories, plus and 10 special citations. And there will be 19 musical performances.

Co-hosted this year by David Ivory, president of Philadelphia chapter of the Grammy Awards, the ceremony’s presenters will include iconic producer/promoter Sid Bernstein, who is credited with bringing The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and others to America and having the first concerts in sports stadiums.

John Salvato, and original member of hit 1960s doo-wop group The Duprees, also will be a presenter, and Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez, original drummer for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, will be a guest at the ceremony.

The auction will benefit the awards, a Grammy-affiliated, non-profit organization that strives to “promote, honor and reward the hard-working musicians and music related businesses in the Lehigh Valley” as well as “help other non-profit organizations reach their goals.”

Jim Brickman has a special place in the music world. Many have never heard of him, yet he has an enthusiastic following, including the 750 who attended his concert Wednesday night at Allentown Symphony Hall.

The occasion was a Jim Brickman 15th Anniversary Holiday Concert, where the pianist mixed his own compositions with Christmas favorites. Sitting at a grand piano in the center of the stage, he began the show with “If You Believe.”

Throughout the evening he mixed in his solo instrumental pieces, short works that might be called “New Age” emphasizing melody. He also “Brickmanized” many holiday favorites.

Brickman, who often turned sideways at the piano to speak to the audience, urged them to sit back and relax. One by one, he introduced his musical cohorts, featuring brief “chats” with each of them. The first was electric violinist Tracy Silverman. Along with a few jokes (“I suffered for my art. Now it’s your turn.”), Silverman explained that his violin was custom built with six strings. He did a Christmas medley with Brickman, as well as a solo spot that included fuzzed-out bits of Led Zeppelin and “Smoke on the Water.” He opened the second set with his versions of seasonal tunes.

Singer Anne Cochran came out to join Brickman. The two, who have performed together since high school, performed “Never Alone” and the new “Joy In Our World.” Cochran sang these with a contemporary Country music inflection, which fit in with the sentimental lyrics. She also added visual appeal with wardrobe changes throughout the evening.

Mark Masri sang duets with Cochran and displayed his vocal prowess with the operatic “Caruso,” sung in Italian. Masri’s low-key talks with Brickman contrasted with his soaring song renditions.

Brickman said, “If you are lucky enough to have hits, you should play them,” and he and his singers covered his biggest ones, either separately or in a medley that included “Destiny,” “After All These Years,” and “Valentine.”

The second set featured “Rainbow Connection,” in which Brickman used both his own voice and a perfect imitation of Kermit the Frog. There was also a question and answer section that featured a few stories and jokes.

A Jim Brickman show is not for everyone. The repartee is corny at times, and Brickman’s piano playing tends to be in one restricted style. But don’t tell that to any of his fans.

Rapper Eminem leads the 2010 Grammy Award nominations with 10 and soulful singer Bruno Mars got seven, but the Lehigh Valley was a standout on the list, too.

Allentown native jazz pianist Keith Jarrett was nominated for Best Improvised Jazz Solo for his song “Body and Soul” from the album “Jasmine.”

Keith Jarrett

Doylestown native Pink also was nominated, and four headliners from this year’s Allentown Fair also were nominated , with Lady Antebellum getting six nominations. Two headliners from Bethlehem’s Musikfest festival this year also were nominated and a third was among Tuesday’s announcers.

And a host of others for artists who recently played in the Valley also were nominated.

It was the third nomination and first solo nod for Jarrett, 65, who spent most of his childhood in the Lehigh Valley, where he began studying piano at age 3 with a teacher in Coopersburg. He previously was nominated for work with his group The Standards Trio.

Jarrett, who is credited with single-handedly creating an audience for extended solo piano improvisations, talked about his life in Allentown in the liner notes to his 2009 CD “Testament.”

Pink, who was born Alecia Moore and attended Central Bucks West High School, was nominated for Best Collaboration with Vocals for “Imagine” from “The Imagine Project” with Herbie Hancock, India.Arie, Seal, Konono No 1, Jeff Beck & Oumou Sangare.

Pink

She has previously won two Grammys, including the same category in 2001 for the song "Lady Marmalade" with Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim and Mýa for the soundtrack of the film “Moulin Rouge!” Pink tops today’s Billboard Hot 100 song chart with her “Raise Your Glass.”

Berks County native Taylor Swift, who last year had nine nominations and won four Grammys including Album of the Year for “Fearless,” was between albums this year and got just a tangential nomination – she sang on the John Mayer song “Half of My Heart,” which was nominated for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.

Lady Antebellum was nominated for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Country Song and Best Country Performance by Duo or Group with Vocals for the song “Need You Now,” and Album of the Year and Best Country Album for its CD of the same name.

Another headliner from this year’s Allentown Fair headliner, Justin Bieber, was nominated for Best New Artist and Best Pop Vocal Album for “My World 2.0.” And fair headliner Keith Urban was nominated for Best Male Country Vocal Performance for “Til Summer Comes Around” (which he sang at the fair) and prog rock band Rush for Best Long Form Music Video.

Chris Young, who opened for Tim McGraw at Allentown Fair in 2009, was nominated for Best Male Country Vocal performance for “Getting’ You Home,” which he sang at the fair.

Musikfest headliner Nora Jones was nominated for Best Female Pop performance for “Chasing Pirates.” Adam Lambert, who sold out his show at Musikfest and has a new acoustic disc due out Tuesday, was nominated for Best Male Pop Performance for “Whataya Want from Me.”

And another Musikfest sellout headliner this year, Selena Gomez, joined with rocker Dave Grohl to announce the nominees for Song of the Year.

Jamey Johnson, who played Allentown’s Crocodile Rock Café in September 2009, was nominated for Best Male Country Vocal Performance for “Macon,” Best Country Collaboration with Vocals for “Bad Angel” with Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley, and for Best Country Album for “The Guitar Song.”

Other nominees who recently have played the Lehigh Valley include:

Little Big Town – Played Penn’s Peak near Jim Thorpe on Nov. 4, nominated for Best Country Performance by Duo or Group for “White Church.”Ricky Skaggs – Nominated for Best Pop/Country Gospel Album for “Mosaic” and Best Traditional Folk Album for “Songs My Dad Loved,” he played Sellersville Theater 1894 in February.Maria Muldaur – Played Sellersville Theater in September. Nominated for Best Traditional Folk Album for “Maria Muldaur & Her Garden of Joy.”Comedian Kathy Griffin -- Played State Theatre in Easton on Nov. 17. Nominated for Best Comedy Album.Elton John – Played Reading’s Sovereign Center in April. Nominated for Best Collaboration with Vocals “If It Wasn’t for Bad” with Leon Russell, which he performed at the show.Trace Adkins -- Played the Sovereign Center in February 2009. Nominated for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals for “Hillbilly Bone” with Blake Shelton.

My Chemical Romance, which last week released its fourth studio album, “Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys," are scheduled to participate in a live interview with Billboard magazine at 5:30 p.m. Thursday (today) that you can watch here at Lehigh Valley Music:

My Chemical Romance had its biggest hit with its 2006 album “The Black Parade,” which hit No. 2 on Billboard’s albums chart, went platinum and spawned the platinum, No. 1 alternative single “Welcome to The Black Parade.”

The band released a live album, “The Black Parade is Dead!,” in 2008.

My Chemical Romance had one of its breakout performances opening for Jimmy Eat World at Allentown Fair in 2002. The band was supposed to headline the fair in 2006, but drummer Bob Bryar came down with a blood infection and the band canceled on the day of the concert, leaving co-headliner Taking Back Sunday to carry on the show.

In March, the band announced on its website that Bryar had left the band, but didn’t say why.

My Chemical Romance is scheduled to play New York City’s Roseland Ballroom on Friday; Terminal 5 in New York City on April 22 and 23; Tower Theatre in Upper Darby on May 5; and Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, N.J., on May 7 and 8.

While you're waiting foor the live chat, here's a video of "Welcom to the Black Parade:

A Lehigh Valley area native this week has the No. 1 song in the country.

Pink, the Doylestown native formerly known as Alecia Moore, will top Billboard’s new singles chart to be released Thursday with the song “Raise Your Glass,” the magazine is reporting.

The single, the first from Pink’s latest disc, “Greatest Hits … So Far!!!,” is just the second solo No. 1 song in her 12-year career and the first since she topped the charts with 2008’s “So What.” She also was among singers — along with Mya, Christina Aguilera and Lil’ Kim — on the collaboration “Lady Marmalade” that went to No. 1 in 2001.

While that other Valley-area native — country star Taylor Swift, who was born in Wyomissing, Berks County — has gotten a lot of attention in the past few years, she’s never had a No. 1 song on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. Her “You Belong With Me” in 2009 and “Today Was a Fairy Tale” in 2010 both hit No. 2, and her most recent single, “Mine,” from her third disc, “Speak Now,” peaked at No. 3 in August.

“Greatest Hits … So Far!!!” debuted at No. 14 last week. Billboard has not released this week’s albums chart yet.

Steve Miller, whose songs “The Joker,” “Rock’n Me” and “Fly Like and Eagle” topped the charts in the 1970s, will perform the first-ever concert at the new ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks in Bethlehem on April 30, ArtsQuest just announced.

The multi-platinum-selling Miller will christen the contemporary performing arts center with a private concert for ArtsQuest Center donors and supporters in the Musikfest Café presented by Yuengling.

No tickets will be sold to the general public.

The show will be “a private concert for individual and corporate donors of $25,000 or more,” ArtsQuest spokesman Mark Demko said.

Steve Miller

“This Grand Opening Gala, which will also feature a dinner and other festivities, is a special evening recognizing all of the individual and corporate donors, as well as local and state government officials and others who were integral in helping launch the ArtsQuest Center and SteelStacks campus,” Demko said.

Miller, 67, was among the best-selling music artists of the 1970s and early ‘80s, when his hits, which also included “Take the Money and Run,” “Jet Airliner,” “Jungle Love” and “Swingtown,” sold more than 30 million albums and he performed to sold-out arenas and stadiums throughout the world.

His “Greatest Hits 1974-78” album is among the most popular albums of all time, having sold more than 13 million copies since its release in 1978.

The 1973 album “The Joker,” which reached No. 2 on the charts and spawned the No. 1 title track, was the first of three consecutive Top 20 albums for Miller, the other two being 1976’s “Fly Like and Eagle” and 1977’s “Book of Dreams.” He last topped the charts in 1982 with the album and song “Abracadabra.”

Miller played ArtsQuest’s huge downtown Bethlehem Musikfest festival in 2005 in a sold-out, lightening-shortened show, playing just less than an hour. He played the Mountain Laurel Center for the Performing Arts in Bushkill in 2007.

In June, Miller released “Bingo!” - - his first studio album in 17 years – which hit the top of the Billboard Blues Albums charts and No. 11 on the Rock Albums chart.

Miller’s show will be an anomaly for ArtsQuest Center. Used to playing before thousands of people — he sold out the 6,500-capacity Musikfest show — he’ll be playing in the ArtsQuest Center a venue that likely won’t sell more than 900 tickets for a standing-only rock show.

Acts booked for public concerts at the center that have become know suggest smaller shows: cabaret singer Leon Redbone, Pink Floyd tribute band The Machine and Canadian folk duo Dala.

“We are currently working on the initial lineup for the public shows at the Musikfest Café, and we hope to have an announcement in the very near future,” Demko said.

But ArtsQuest President Jeffrey Parks back in October said the center wanted a high-profile act to open the venue.

“He’s going to blow everybody’s socks off,” Parks said at the time.

The grand opening for the ArtsQuest Center is set for May 1. ArtsQuest is in the final phase of its capital campaign to complete the $26 million performing arts center.

Bethlehem singer/songwriter Paulie Knakk ran away with the seventh annual Lehigh Valley Acoustic Performers Contest, winning over not only the judges but the crowd at Mezza Luna Bar & Grill in Allentown.

Paulie Knakk

Knakk, born Paul Knakkergaard, used forceful singing and strumming on an acoustic guitar in a 10-song set that had the audience clapping along on several songs and cheering others.

The truth is, the competition wasn’t even close. Knakk was the only contestant among the four finalists who picked notes on his guitar rather than strum chords (although much of his songs also were strummed). And he offered up a lot of energy on stage.

His songs also were the most interesting – offering up, if not the only hooks of the night, certainly the most and the best. He strummed dynamically, attacking the strings on such songs as “Jealousy” (probably his best) and “Waiting on Superman). He also beat-boxed with his mouth, sang scat and rapped lyrics – which on the closing “The Real Song,” had the audience clapping along.

It also helped that Knakk, who said he’s only been performing about two years, had a bunch of charisma, often smiling broadly.

Knakk won $500 cash, a 175th Anniversary Limited Edition guitar from The Martin Guitar Co. in Nazareth worth $800 and other prizes worth more than $1,500.

He became a finalist by winning the second of four weekly preliminary competitions.

The judges announced only the winner, but the second-best contestant in my opinion was Poconos-based groove-rock band Mouths of Babes, which won the first week of preliminaries.

Mouths of Babes

Singer Lashonia Hunter led the four-person group with strong and dynamic singing, and the band changed it up bit on its best song, “How Much can You Take,” which she described as “southern rock,” but was more straight-forward rock. Guitarist Mike Hoover also occasionally added some twirling guitar.

But the group suffered from what plagued all of the acts Tuesday: Most of their songs sounded alike. And with each playing 40-minute sets, that flaw became glaring.

There also was a disappointing lack of traditional structure of verse/chorus/bridge in any of the songs -- since because the contest requires original material, it’s almost as much a songwriting contest as a performance contest.

Nearly all the songs were extended riffs of strummed acoustic guitars, which truth be told became boring pretty quickly. The fact that Knakk’s performance was a bit different and he added hooks helped set him far apart from the others, even if he, too would have benefitted from a chorus in some of his songs.

Opening contestant Lindsay Ray Ryan of Pen Argyl did that in “My Point of View,” by far her best song and the single best song of the night. A fast, strong angry response to her sister, it had great lyrics that were moved along by a chorus. It also showcased her strong blues-tinged voice. Ryan won the fourth week preliminaries.

Also competing was Bethlehem’s The Solis Duo(Victor Solis and Becky Lieberman), who made it interesting by playing nine themed songs in a “concept album” approach to the story of a relationship.

JOHN J. MOSER has been around long enough to have seen the original Ramones in a small club in New Jersey, U2 from the fourth row of a theater and Bob Dylan's born-again tours. But he also has the number for All-American Rejects' Nick Wheeler on his cell phone, wrote the first story ever done on Jack's Mannequin and hung out in Wiz Khalifa's hotel room.

OTHER CONTRIBUTORS

JODI DUCKETT: As The Morning Call's assistant features editor responsible for entertainment, she spends a lot of time surveying the music landscape and sizing up the Valley's festivals and club scene. She's no expert, but enjoys it all — especially artists who resonated in her younger years, such as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Tracy Chapman, Santana and Joni Mitchell.

KATHY LAUER-WILLIAMS enjoys all types of music, from roots rock and folk to classical and opera. Music has been a constant backdrop to her life since she first sat on the steps listening to her mother’s Broadway LPs when she was 2. Since becoming a mother herself, she has become well-versed on the growing genre of kindie rock and, with her son in tow, can boast she has seen a majority of the current kid’s performers from Dan Zanes to They Might Be Giants.

STEPHANIE SIGAFOOS: A Jersey native raised in Northeast PA, she was reared in a house littered with 8-tracks, 45s and cassette tapes of The Beatles, Elvis, Meatloaf and Billy Joel. She also grew up on the sounds of Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw and can be found traversing the countryside in search of the sounds of a steel guitar. A fan of today's 'new country,' she digs mainstream/country-pop crossovers like Lady Antebellum and Sugarland and other artists that illustrate the genre's diversity.